Port Bureau Updates

March 2016 Commerce Club Mark K. Knoy, President and CEO, American Commercial Barge Lines

American Commercial Barge Lines (ACBL) named Mark Knoy as its president and chief executive officer in August 2011.

Prior to joining ACBL, he was vice president of American Electric Power’s (AEP) Fuel, Emissions and Logistics Group and president of AEP River Operations, having joined AEP with its 2001 purchase of MEMCO Barge Line. From 1984 to 1994, he was owner/operator of The Mark Twain Towing Company and Delmar Marine, Inc., in Pekin, Illinois. Knoy began his career in 1973 working aboard towboats on the inland waterways as a deck hand and then as a captain.

Knoy serves as a director of the Corps of Engineer’s Inland Waterways Users Board, a Board of Trustees’ member for both the Coast Guard Foundation and The Seamen’s Church Institute and its Center for Maritime Education and Ministry on the River, chairman of the National Waterways Foundation, board member for the H.T. Pott Inland Waterways Library at the University of Missouri - St. Louis, treasurer of the Marine Transportation Council, and former member of the Board of Directors for the Fund for the Arts and the Boy Scouts of America, Greater St. Louis Area Council. He is a past chairman of both the Waterways Council, Inc. and the Midwest Region of the American Waterways Operators.

HOUSTON, Texas (January 12, 2016) – Pat Studdert, president and CEO of Buffalo Marine Service, Inc., has been named the 2016 Maritime Person of the Year by the Greater Houston Port Bureau (“Port Bureau”). The Port Bureau will recognize Studdert’s eventful career in Houston’s maritime industry and his many contributions to the community at its 87th Annual Maritime Dinner on August 20, 2016, at the Bayou City Event Center. “The Port Bureau Board of Directors selects a person or company that has made a lasting impact on the port region to honor at our dinner,” said CAPT Bill Diehl, USCG (Ret.), president of the Port Bureau. “Pat sees the value of our port and is always working to promote it and improve our efficiency, safety, and competitiveness. On shore, he is equally active in his local community, previously serving on the LaPorte school board and in civic organizations. We are privileged to honor Pat’s life, wit, and wisdom at our maritime event.”

A native Houstonian, Studdert is a graduate of the University of Houston and Texas Southern University. He coached athletics early in his career at Sharpstown and Waltrip high schools while working with his father, Thomas Studdert, at Buffalo Marine on Sunday afternoons. Initially in charge of tug and barge maintenance, Studdert assumed leadership of the company in 1980, and has grown Buffalo Marine into a prestigious company known for its energy-efficient, environmentally protective fleet.

Studdert serves in the Texas Waterways Operators Association, the Houston International Seafarer’s Center Board of Directors, the Barbours Cut International Seafarer’s Center Board of Directors, and other civic organizations. An avid football fan – and well-known for his “coaching” style business approach – Studdert has had a presence in the NRG Stadium since the Texans’ inaugural season in 2001.

The Port Bureau’s Annual Maritime Dinner attracts more than 700 leaders from the maritime, energy, petrochemical, and transportation industries. Attendees represent every major terminal along the Houston Ship Channel, as well as shippers, carriers, pilots, tugs, and other critical nodes of the maritime supply chain. Previous honorees have included ExxonMobil, Houston business leader Ned Holmes, Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, Gulf Winds International founder Steve Stewart.

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